Digital Commons Network^™

Energy Audits In Malta, Trustin Farrugia Cann

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Energy is the driving force of our society. Industry, economy and the general public, all depend on safe, secure, sustainable and affordable energy. But at the same time, energy related emissions account for almost 80% of the European Union’s total green house gas emissions. The European Union has set itself a great challenge and a target was set in 2007 to reduce by 20% of its primary energy consumption, to increase the share of renewable energy by 20% and to reduce the green house gasses by 20% until 2020. Energy auditing is an effective energy management tool which identifies and …

Development Of A Best Practices Manual For The U.S. Department Of Energy's Wind For Schools Project, Jessica Coleman Fox

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The Development of a Best Practices Manual for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind for Schools Project is an effort to provide the necessary research and data to make the completion of a Best Practices Manual possible. The Best Practices Manual will be used to help with the future development of Wind for Schools Projects nationally. The Wind for Schools Project was developed in 2005; currently 11 states are actively participating. As the Wind for Schools Project developed, various approaches and techniques were used to meet the goals of the program. A Best Practices Manual will serve as a repository …

Assessing The Feasibility Of Small Hydropower In Northern California, Andrea Peterson

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Small hydropower is an underutilized form of clean energy generation. In order for any potential for small hydropower to be developed or utilized, the amount of potential power needs to be estimated accurately. A number of studies have been conducted, though none of these studies have taken local climate into account, which affects the accuracy of their results. A number of places in Northern California have potential that has not yet been utilized, but a more accurate assessment of that potential is called for. Although studies can be conducted through a number of different methodologies, most use GIS technology to …

Implementation Of Signal Conditioning Circuitry For Co2 Sensor For Monitoring Co2 Emissions From Coal Fired Power Plant In Neyveli Lignite Corporation (Tamil Nadu, India), Muruganand Prabhakaran

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The most significant anthropogenic greenhouse gas causing global warming is carbon dioxide (CO2). Due to the increase of burning of fossil fuels by industries, the atmospheric CO2 concentration increased by more than 30% in 10 years and is expected to continue to increase. This dissertation analyses a sensor unit used to monitor the emission levels of carbon dioxide from the Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) coal fired power plant which is located in the southern part of India. Most of India’s power generation sectors are based on coal fired power plants. The NLC power plant is owned by the central government …

Sulfur Dioxide Trends In Malta: A Statistical Computing Approach, Nicholas Desira

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

A statistical investigation of data related to emissions and measurement of SO2 in the Maltese islands encompassing the period 2004 to 2012 was conducted. The purpose was to investigate whether SO2 levels were driven by the Marsa power station (MPS), which was considered to be the main source of SO2 on the island. In addition, the study sought to establish spatial and temporal trends in the SO2 concentrations measured throughout the islands. Data was obtained from the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (4 fixed monitoring stations and a diffusion tube network) and also from the Enemalta Corporation (emissions of MPS). …

Methodology And Automated Metadata Extraction From Multiple Volume Shadow Copies, Henri Michael Van Goethem

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Modern day digital forensics investigations rely on timelines as a principal method for normalizing and chronologically categorizing artifacts recovered from computer systems. Timelines provide investigators with a chronological representation of digital evidence so they can depict altered and unaltered digital forensics data in-context to drive conclusions about system events and/or user activities. While investigators rely on many system artifacts such as file system time/date stamps, operating system artifacts, program artifacts, logs, and/or registry artifacts as input for deriving chronological representations, using only the available or most recent version of the artifacts may provide a limited picture of historical changes on …

High & Low Resolution Techniques To Solve Protein Structures, Nathan Wright

Science Enabled by Photon Sources: Local Research Interests in Virginia

Protein structure and dynamics form the platform on which almost all biomedical research is currently based, including hot topics like computer-aided drug design and established problems like creating a cure for cancer. Since most proteins are too small to visualize with even an electron microscope, biochemists must use either NMR spectroscopy or x-ray diffraction to determine what the structures look like. In my lab, we combine both techniques to describe fundamentally how normal and mutated proteins behave in muscle cells. We are specifically interested in the structural protein obscurin. This giant muscle protein helps to organize muscle cells, sense muscle …

Optical Techniques To Probe Internal Dynamics Of Soft Materials, Klebert Feitosa

Science Enabled by Photon Sources: Local Research Interests in Virginia

Like many other soft materials, foam displays complex fluid behavior. Under different circumstances it may behave like an elastic solid or a typical fluid depending on driving forces and the interactions between individual bubbles. To understand the inherent complexities of foam flow, an effective method to visualize its internal structure and dynamics is paramount. In this talk, I will introduce two techniques we have used in our lab to probe foam dynamics at the bubble level: optical tomography and confocal microscopy. The results show great promise to unveil the internal mechanisms that lead to the complex fluid behavior of foams.

X-Ray Fluorescence Microscopy: A Tool For Biology, Life Science & Nanomedicine, Stafan Vogt

Science Enabled by Photon Sources: Local Research Interests in Virginia

Trace elements, in particular metals, play a significant role in most known life forms. It is estimated that one-third of all known proteins contain metal cofactors, and the majority of these function as essential metalloenzymes catalyzing biochemical reactions. Trace metals are increasingly recognized as having a critical impact on human health both in their natural occurrence and via therapeutic drugs (e.g., environmental exposure to heavy metals, treatment with cisplatin-based drugs in chemotherapy, ...), and in diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Quantitative study of the distribution of trace elements on the cellular and subcellular level provide important information about functions and pathways …

Harvesting Heat Through Seebeck Spin Tunneling Effect, Costel Constantin

Science Enabled by Photon Sources: Local Research Interests in Virginia

Harvesting the wasted heat released in the atmosphere by electronic devices has become an important issue in microelectronics as devices shrink toward nanoscale dimensions while achieving an increase in operating speed. Spintronic devices that make use of electrons’ spin as an information carrier offer a promising path to create novel efficient devices thus reducing this wasted heat. Thermoelectronics, on the other hand, explores the possibility of converting heat into electrical power. Spin caloritronics is an exciting new research field that takes advantage of both spintronics and thermoelectronics. In this talk, I will present the design of a spin caloritronic device …

The Role Of Photon Sources In Materials Research: Past, Present, & Future, E. Ward Plummer

Science Enabled by Photon Sources: Local Research Interests in Virginia

In this lecture I will trace the development of Light Sources from the early days of parasitic operation to the new billion dollar dedicated facilities. Clearly, the mode of usage has changed, but so has the type of user. How have these facilities balanced the need for beyond the state-of-the art experiments and serving the needs for routine characterization of materials? How can and should these facilities address the needs for the development of a workforce needed for the next generation of machines and science? Have they produced the science and scientists anticipated? Where do we go next, what is …

Pmma Nanocomposites Composed Of Optically Active Doped Inorganic Nanocrystals, Kyle Gipson

Science Enabled by Photon Sources: Local Research Interests in Virginia

As technology advances, more efficient, cost-effective materials and processes are being developed to serve the duties of optical materials within networks. As light transfers data through polymer optical materials, the polymeric matrix absorbs the signal and this phenomenon is known as attenuation. Attenuation occurs via the higher vibrational energies with respect to fluoropolymers that are inherent with hydrocarbon amorphous polymers like polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA).

One solution to realize efficient light emission is to incorporate nanoparticles into the polymer matrix. In the research presented, aqueous solution-polymer precipitation was used to synthesize light harvesting ligand capped luminescent nanoparticles. Tb3+:LaF3 was the chromophore …

Optical Properties& Energy Transfer Dynamics Of Atmospheric Species, Daniel K. Havey

Science Enabled by Photon Sources: Local Research Interests in Virginia

Our research group is interested in how light interacts with small molecules and particulate matter that are important to atmospheric chemistry and climate change. An active project currently being performed in the James Madison University Undergraduate Laser Laboratory involves a detailed mapping of energy transfer rates from excited or metastable states of atomic or molecular species. This talk describes a specific example study with potential relevance to the JLAMP VUV/Soft X-ray User Facility that would investigate relaxation dynamics of metastable Krypton atoms using two-photon photoacoustic spectroscopy at 819 nm and 124 nm. A study like this would provide useful reference …

Surface Modification & Characterization Of Nano-Composite Polymers, Chris Hughes, Brian Augustine

Science Enabled by Photon Sources: Local Research Interests in Virginia

We have studied the modification of surfaces of both PMMA and nano-composite polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) containing acrylics. These nano-composites can be spun cast from a variety of solvents and the surface chemistry can be modified by exposure to oxygen-containing plasmas. However, we have found that interesting surface structure evolve over the space of several hours after these films are deposited. We have also found that the solvent used for the spin casting of these layers can alter the behaviors of these surfaces. In particular, we found that halogenated solvents can form complexes with the PMMA backbone to increase the …

Research Potential Of The Twisted Photon Beams, Andrei Afanasev

Science Enabled by Photon Sources: Local Research Interests in Virginia

The fact that photon beams can carry large orbital angular momenta was pointed out in a pioneering work by Allen and collaborators [1] and was later demonstrated experimentally. When quantized, such beams can be described in terms of twisted photons [2] that have a peculiar property: their total angular momentum projected on the direction of propagation may range from a few to hundreds of units of h. Accelerator-based light sources may generate such twisted light with high intensities, leading to new applications in several fields of physics. Examples of such applications will be presented in this talk.

[1.] L. Allen …

Development Of A 60,000 Rpm X-Ray Chopper With 25 Nsec Phase Jitter For Crystallography, Eric Maslen

Science Enabled by Photon Sources: Local Research Interests in Virginia

A high speed X-Ray chopper (mechanical shutter) was developed for sub microsecond time-resolved photocrystallography using a synchrotron source. Based on a rim-slotted titanium wheel rotating at a nominal 60,000 r/min, the device has an upper bound timing alignment (aperture passage compared to source pulse edge) jitter of 23 nsec RMS and has been operated consistently at jitters as low as 7 nsec RMS. The spindle was derived from a commercial turbo-molecular pump whose drive was adapted in a fairly simple manner to enable fine control by a secondary wheel phase regulator using conventional, off-the-shelf components. Because the spindle uses magnetic …

Imaging And Rheology Of Complex Granular & Granular-Fluid Flows, Brian Utter

Science Enabled by Photon Sources: Local Research Interests in Virginia

Granular materials are ubiquitous in nature and industry, from avalanches to the mixing of pharmaceuticals, yet the behavior of these “fluids” is poorly understood. While individual particles interact simply through friction and inelastic collisions, the non-linear forces and large number of particles leads to an unpredictable, complex system. History dependence, strong fluctuations and sudden failure are commonly observed, making predictive equations of macroscopic flow difficult or impossible to determine. Our recent work focuses on jamming, avalanching and shear banding in dense granular and granular-fluid flows and, in particular, the effects of external vibration and surface chemistry on flow properties. Ongoing …

Forensic Analysis Of Linux Physical Memory: Extraction And Resumption Of Running Processes., Ernest D. Mougoue

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Traditional digital forensics’ procedures to recover and analyze digital data were focused on media-type storage devices like hard drives, hoping to acquire evidence or traces of malicious behavior in stored files. Usually, investigators would image the data and explore it in a somewhat “safe” environment; this is meant to reduce as much as possible the amount of loss and corruption that might occur when analysis tools are used. Unfortunately, techniques developed by intruders to attack machines without leaving files on the disks and the ever dramatically increasing size of hard drives make the discovery of evidence difficult. These increased interest …

Blackstarting The North American Power Grid After A Nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse (Emp) Event Or Major Solar Storm, Joshua Good

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The electric power grid is our most critical infrastructure. This key resource provides the energy required for all other infrastructures to function. In modern times, electricity has become necessary to sustain life. The power grid in the U.S. is a target for terrorists and is vulnerable to naturally-occurring events. Numerous assessments have been performed on the vulnerability of our national power grid to both manmade and natural events.1 Two significant wide-area threats against our power grid are solar storms and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attacks. Solar storms are naturally-occurring events that have the potential to create large-scale blackouts that could potentially …

Identity Management In A Public Iaas Cloud, William T. Skinner Iii

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

In this thesis the unique environment that is the public IaaS cloud along with its differences from a traditional data center environment has been considered. The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), states that “Managing identities and access control for enterprise applications remains one of the greatest challenges facing IT today”. The CSA also points out that “there is a lack of consistent secure methods for extending identity management into the cloud and across the cloud” [1]. This thesis examines this challenge of managing identities in the cloud by developing a list of best practices for implementing identity management in the cloud. …

A Business Case For Electric Power Distributors Using Simulation: Investigating The Combined Use Of The Strategies Of Feed-In-Tariffs, Distributed Generation, Time Of Use Rates, And Efficiency, Brooks E. Taylor

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Numerous references found in the academic and trade literature discuss the availability and applicability of certain technologies and policies to allow the U.S. electrical grid to address the future challenges of continued growth and aging infrastructure. However, the existing utility companies seem reluctant to adopt these new measures. This thesis will describe some of these strategies and develop a model using Stella system dynamics software that will explore the potential financial impact to the utilities from using these strategies in combination. The four strategies to be investigated are feed in tariffs, time of use rates, distributed generation, and demand-side energy …

Metocean Data Management And Modeling To Support U.S. Offshore Wind Power Development In The Mid-Atlantic, Whitney Amanda West

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Efforts to encourage more conservative electricity consumption, through public awareness campaigns and government-mandated energy efficiency standards, have consistently been overshadowed by population increase and increased standards of living, leading to higher electricity demand, year after year. Sufficient resources and technology exist to support the development of a robust offshore wind industry to help meet this rising demand, but a number of barriers unique to the U.S. have hindered progress. Addressing many of these obstacles involves resolving uncertainty issues related to development. Not only is there a general lack of data to provide stakeholders, developers, and governing authorities with sufficient information …

Effects Of Metallic, Semiconducting, And Insulating Substrates On The Coupling Involving Radiative Polaritons In Thin Oxide Films, Anita J. Vincent-Johnson, Kyle A. Vasquez, Giovanna Scarel, James S. Hammonds Jr., Mathieu Francoeur

Department of Physics and Astronomy - Faculty Scholarship

Through simulations, this work explores the effects of conducting, semiconducting, and insulating substrates on the absorption of infrared radiation by radiative polaritons in oxide layers with thicknesses that range from 30 nm to 9 μm. Using atomic layer deposition, oxide layers can be formed in the nanometer scale. Our results suggest that the chemistry and conductivity of the substrate determine the amount of absorption by radiative polaritons in oxide layers thinner than the skin depth. The effects of the chemistry and conductivity of the substrate are especially effective for oxide films thinner than about 250 nm, which we label as …